


Existential Exorcism

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, Existential Crisis, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Plot Twists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27881921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Prompto decides he's going to be a medium for the evening. Noctis decides that's hilarious, and in their displeasure, the spirits impart a very pointed portent of doom upon him. That particular prophecy is not nearly as funny.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Nyx Ulric
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	Existential Exorcism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glaivenoct](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glaivenoct/gifts).



> A [prompt fill](https://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/636602481164632064/halloween-prompt-21-nyxnoct) for [glaivenoct](https://glaivenoct.tumblr.com/)... Please don't remind me it's not Halloween anymore.

“Oh my gaud, I think the crystal ball is working. The spirits are telling me you’re a dumbass.”

Noctis promptly shut his mouth, locking his lips over a laugh. Nyx could tell how hard it was for him not to let it out – he was having a rough go of it himself. It was just that Prompto was taking this so, _so_ seriously, and he was so _very_ bad at it.

“Anyway,” Prompto drawled, rolling his eyes back to focus on the LED orb in the middle of the table. “As the spirits were saying, you’re doomed for a future of self-fulfillment, inner peace, outer strength, yada yada.”

“Doomed?” Iris laughed. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

“Hold please.”

Prompto raised a finger, curling over the shifting green light within the plastic sphere. The dim glow did a poor job outshining the light of his phone, concealed beneath the hood of his “robes.” He’d fashioned the outfit out of old, glow-in-the-dark star sheets that had been gathering dust in the linen closet since he was a kid.

“Minor mistranslation,” Prompto said, after a brief scroll through “the other side.” “The spirits meant ‘destined.’ You’re _destined_ for a future of self-fulfillment. My bad.”

Iris punched the air in victory, enthused over destiny being in her favor. Nyx was certain the astral predictions had nothing at all to do with the pointed look Gladio had been giving Prompto over his little sister’s shoulder during the entire reading.

“Alright, lovers!” Prompto announced, directing his crystal ball towards Noct and Nyx. “Your turn! The spirits have _a lot_ to say about the two of you.”

“Will they say nice things if I apologize for earlier?” Noctis teased.

“You’ve made your bed, bro,” Prompto said, with a solemn shake of his head. “Now you gotta lay in it.”

Nyx stole that opportunity to slide an arm around Noct’s shoulders, tug him to his side, and murmur, purposefully, against his ear, “Can you make that bed for two?”

The groans were worth it.

“Bruh,” Gladio said, in that deeply ironic rumble of his. “There are minors present.”

Iris shook her head, a coy smile pursing her lips. Nyx still remembered Selena at that age, knowing far more than he ever wanted her to about the wildly inappropriate art of innuendo. One day, he would have to pull Gladio aside, brother to brother, and break it to him gently that fifteen-year-old girls would forever be ahead of them in the field of interpretive wordplay, whether they liked it or not.

Tonight though, he’d indulge him the fantasy of Iris’s virgin ears, like he’d indulged Prompto his fantasy of prophetic fulfillment. The kid got the ambience right, at least. The windows were drawn over the tiny suburban home, shrouding the kitchen in muted gray twilight. A row of battery operated candles flickered mechanically along the windowsill, framing Prompto’s hooded face in an aura of electric yellow.

The wannabe fortuneteller stooped over his crystal ball, knobby fingers circling the sphere in exaggerated gestures of mystical significance. Prompto brought his face closer, glow-in-the-dark hood slipping down over his eyes until it was just his freckled pout illuminated in the battery lights. Noct’s shoulders quivered in barely repressed laughter beneath Nyx’s arm, and Nyx had to squeeze him within the crook of his elbow to remind him that the spirits had already been displeased enough by him for one evening.

“Oh no,” Prompto intoned, “I see a grim future ahead of you two.”

“Uh huh.”

Noctis rolled his eyes up towards Nyx. He placated the exasperated look on Noct’s face with a quick kiss against his temple. He’d been warned that Prompto was a bit eccentric and that he could get a little _too_ into the role of whatever hyper-fixation he was determined to entertain them with on any given night. Nyx was prepared for this. Anyway, it was all in good fun… At least until he noticed the sweat break out across Prompto’s upper lip.

“Um… Yeah, no, seriously,” he said, the wise façade of his voice wavering. “The spirits are being very… dark. That’s, um… yup. That’s definitely doom this time, and destruction, and death. Errr… hold on. Just let me double check… Am I getting my wires crossed?”

Noctis frowned as Prompto consulted the digital glow of his guide, the folds of his bedsheet robe shaking where his fingers skittered for a translation.

“C’mon, quit being a jerk. I said I was sor – ”

Just then, the kitchen table shook. It jolted up from the floor, just half an inch, but enough that when it landed, the loud noise made them all jump. The battery operated candles started to glitch, then went dark. Noct’s nails sunk into Nyx’s arm, the sharp vice of them startling Nyx worse than the table did. Prompto had jerked away from the crystal ball when the table moved, hands balled into his robes, pulling them up to his nose as a shield.

The house was quiet for a while, none of them willing to breathe lest they miss some dire warning whispered from behind the mortal veil. When none came, and the toy candles sputtered back on, Nyx glared, witheringly, at Gladio.

“Really, man?”

Gladio sat perfectly still, arms crossed and shoulders hunched. Nyx did not at all believe the nonplussed look of wide-eyed innocence he shifted in his direction. While Iris would have most definitely felt her brother’s knee move against the bottom of the table, her face didn’t give anything away, either. Her big brown eyes were blank and unblinking, staring down at the table like she didn’t trust it wasn’t going to attack her a second time.

Nyx scoffed. Sibling solidarity; he should have figured. Bet she had the remote for the candles in her lap, too.

“Weeellll, this was fun,” Prompto spoke up, in a tone that was decidedly not fun. “But I think I’m all oracle’d out for today.”

Iris and Gladio maintained their mutual veneer of guileless perplexity throughout the farewells. Meanwhile, Nyx was already conspiring revenge plots behind every parting handshake. The Amicitias might have been a wily bunch, but Nyx grew up with Selena Ulric. Retaliatory pranks for petty grievances was practically hard-wired into his DNA. His infantile appetite for retribution aside, he felt compelled to avenge Noctis besides.

He’d been quiet since the little “scare” – quieter than usual, at least. Nyx could tell the differences between Noct’s silences by now, could tell when he was just being quiet for lack of anything to say, or when he was being quiet because he was too scared to speak up.

“You don’t really believe we ‘made contact’ tonight, do you?” Nyx teased, knocking his elbow against Noct’s side. “They were just messing with you, Noct. Stuff’s not real.”

“No?” Noctis blinked, the fine threads of his brow snarled into a knot. “I thought you believed in that stuff. The spirit world and everything.”

“I mean, yeah. But c’mon, Noct. That wasn’t even close to what I was brought up with.”

Nyx laughed, hooking his arm around Noct to reel him into his side. He’d been growing further away, inch by inch, since they’d left Prompto’s house, and while the distance between their bodies was easy enough to regain, it was the cloudy horizons in Noct’s mind Nyx was most worried about reaching. Oftentimes, Nyx didn’t need to guess what occupied Noct’s thoughts. All he ever needed to know what was going on inside that curious little head, was a curl of his fingers around Noct’s chin to bring his face up and look him in the eye. Noct’s stare told him whole stories without saying a single word.

So, it was really hard to read him when he kept looking down at his feet. Clusters of autumn leaves crinkled like paper beneath his shoes, dragging the toes of his boots through the foliage. The city sidewalks were nearly empty, only a thin sleeve of mist clinging to the concrete beneath the streetlights. Rare were the times they could enjoy a quiet walk alone together in a city packed to the skyscrapers such as this one. But while the high rises were up in the clouds, Noct’s thoughts were much further below.

“You don’t ever think about that stuff?” he asked, his breath trailing thin clouds of steam in the crisp autumn night. “The future… death and things like that?”

“Noct, he wasn’t being serious,” Nyx chuckled, then stopped when he felt the tension bleed into Noct’s shoulders. “Hey.” He stopped them in the middle of the sidewalk, turning Noctis to face him. “Nothing’s going to happen to us, alright?”

“Sure. Right. I mean…” Noct folded his arms across his chest, staring down at the collar of Nyx’s jacket. “I dunno. The world’s so insane right now. Between the war and the plague and the politics... And you’re so damn reckless outside of all that. How do I know you won’t die in some tremendously stupid act of heroism any day now?”

“If this is about that little old lady in the crosswalk the other day…”

“Look, I’m not saying you should have let the truck run her over!” Noct fumbled, cheeks turning a mortified pink. “I’m saying, what if you shoved her out of the way before getting yourself clear? I love that you want to be everyone’s hero, Nyx, but… I don’t know. You need to be around if you’re still gonna be mine.”

Noctis blinked then, in rapid succession. He surprised himself as much as he did Nyx with the confession. He took a moment to collect himself, to bring a hand to the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes and took a breath. Nyx let him take all the time he needed, kneading his fingers in small circles over the knobs of Noct’s shoulders.

“It’s like I told you,” Nyx said, slowly, once he knew Noct was ready. “I grew up believing that the spirits of my ancestors follow in every step I take. They have my back. What you’d call luck, I’d call my fifteenth great uncle kicking my ass that extra inch out of the way of an eighteen wheeler.”

Noct snorted, tucking his face into his scarf – either trying to hide a smile or his tears, Nyx wasn’t sure yet. What he was sure of was that this was the last thing he wanted Noct to be thinking about after a dumb, fun little night of spooky silliness with his friends.

“The Ulrics are blessed with pure, dumb luck,” he informed him, with all the confidence of fifteen much dumber generations before him. “And besides that, Galahdians are known for their longevity. Have you not seen how many old people are over there?”

Noctis exhaled again, this time in the unmistakable cadence of a laugh. “Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. In that case, just don’t do anything to piss off your ancestors.”

“I’ll have you know I am in very strong favor with my ancestors at the moment,” Nyx said, curling his hands in the small of Noct’s back as he tugged him forwards.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

Noctis obliged the gentle demand in Nyx’s embrace, crossing the dark void that had opened up between them. He filled it up with Nyx’s confidence, topped it off with his own courage, and stepped back over. No great black fate of existential doom was going to keep them apart.

“They happen to approve very much of my choice in you,” Nyx purred, grazing his lips across Noct’s chin once he was close enough.

“Ah. Must be your ancestors, then. They have terrible taste, too.”

“How _dare_ you! Don’t _ever_ insult my boyfriend like that again.”

It was almost a crime for Nyx to kiss Noct then, if only because it cut off the sound of his laughter. Hard to feel guilty about it as he felt that big pile of unsaid terrors slowly start to dismantle beneath working his lips against his though. It wasn’t as easy as just assuming this was a one and done; they would have this conversation again, Nyx was certain. Because that was Noct: something worried its way into his head, took root, and day by day it sprouted, higher and higher in his brain, until the shade of it darkened the whole plain of his mind.

It was scary for him, Nyx knew, but that was exactly why he was here. It was like Noct said: Nyx was a hero. No one was better equipped to battle that darkness than he.

“Want to go check on Ignis?” Noctis asked, changing the subject as quickly as he brought it up. “I’m starving and I bet he’s still at the Citadel.”

“He’s such a coward,” Nyx chuckled, already following Noct away. “Still say he didn’t want to come tonight because he’s _actually_ afraid of ghosts.”

“Oh, he is,” Noctis said, matter-of-factly. “Citadel’s haunted, you know. The last chef who owned it died in the wine cellar. Still suggests pairings for the specials every time Specs goes down there.”

Nyx barked in disbelief, needling Noct for more details. How could he not have known that Ignis worked in a haunted restaurant? Selena was going to love that when he texted her in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> The plot twist is that it's an everybody lives/nobody dies AU.


End file.
